


Missing Her

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Advice, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Bonding, Gen, POV Third Person Limited, Scrooge is a good uncle sometimes, Set After S02E06 - Last Christmas!, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Written Accent, cross posted on tumblr, secret santa gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 10:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: Feeling lonely in the dead of night is never easy, especially when you've lost someone you loved.





	Missing Her

**Author's Note:**

> This is a secret santa gift for @pewycert on tumblr!! Merry Christmas, my friend! I hope you enjoy our beautiful crazy ducks doing some sweet sweet bonding over their... difficult relationships!

Scrooge finds one of the ducklings crying on a window seat near the kitchen. Their Christmas celebrations had lasted late into the night, so to find one of the children out of bed at such a late hour is more than a tad concerning. 

“Webby?” he says gently, quietly, and the little girl startles and whips around. She sniffles and shoves a hand at her face, and it’s only then that Scrooge realises that she’s crying. 

“Oh, uh… Hey, Mister McDuck,” she says. Her voice wobbles when she speaks, and Scooge has altered his path away from the kitchen before he even realises where his webbed feet are taking him. “S-Sorry if I’m bothering you. Did you want me to fetch you a, uh, midnight snack?” Webby starts to get up, but Scrooge lays a hand on her shoulder, and she wilts and leans into the touch. 

“No, ah’m fine, lass,” he says. He watches her for a moment, takes in the way her shoulders hunch and her gaze has landed on the floor, and then gestures to the seat. “D’ye mind if I—?”

“Oh!! Sure. Go ahead.” Webby wiggles, both out of his grip and out of the way to make room for him on the window seat. Scrooge sits down gingerly; his bones are still cold from his  _ little adventure  _ through time from earlier. 

He pretends to look out the window whilst watching Webby out of the corner of his eye, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think Webby was doing much of the same. She looks  _ lost _ , her eyes red and her feathers damp from tears. 

“It’s a beautiful night,” Scrooge murmurs. “Very clear. Ye can see the moon perfectly.” 

“Mhm.” Webby doesn’t sound very enthusiastic in her hummed response, but Scrooge takes it as a tip to continue talking. 

“On nights like these, I used t’sit out on the roof and look out at the stars. Gave your grandmother quite the scare, that did.” Scrooge chuckles, hoping it doesn’t sound as forced as it feels. When Webby doesn’t laugh with him, or even respond, he cuts off with a little bit of an awkward sigh. 

“What’s wrong, wee one?” he asks simply, gently, and Webby’s beak works for a moment before she turns to him. 

“Nothing’s wrong!! Nothing at all! I’m the same old… Webby! You know… Happy and… adventurous.” She laughs a stressed, forced laugh that sounds more like a sob, and Scrooge merely stares at her, unimpressed. She looks back at him almost defiantly for a moment before her gaze weakens, and she slumps down against the window, dropping her forehead against it. 

“Lass, ah’ve been around far too many years for that t’work on me.”

Webby winces. “I know,” she mumbles after a moment. She sighs heavily, her breath fogging the glass in front of her.  _ A child shouldn’t have to sigh like that _ , Scrooge thinks, a tinge of sadness spreading through him. 

“Do you ever feel like you’ve lost something?” Webby asks suddenly, without looking over at him. Scrooge nearly opens his beak to respond, but the look —what he can see of it— on Webby’s face stops him. She looks as though she’s struggling to say more. So he lets her, and she does. “Like… there was something so  _ powerful _ , once, and you had it, but you didn’t even know you had it? And… now that it’s gone, it’s like you’ll never feel that way about anyone —any _ thing _ — ever again?” She sniffles, obviously distraught, and Scrooge stares at her as he ponders her question. 

It’s her slip of the tongue that catches him off-guard. Scrooge has lost things. He’s lost plenty of  _ things  _ in his life. A life full of adventure and death-defying stunts made a duck lose things. But…  _ any _ **_one_ ** . Somehow, Scrooge has a feeling he knows exactly what — _ who—  _ Webby is referring to. 

The answer is more difficult than he’d like to think about. He doesn’t want to lie to the child. The thought of lying again to any of the ducklings breaks his heart, but there’s something about Webby that not only hurts, but that is something near impossible. Webby is bright, almost ridiculously so. She has her grandmother’s strengths, and her own strange positive tenacity that makes her a chaotic force to be reckoned with. She’s a  _ good  _ child. 

Scrooge thinks back on it, and he wonders if once, he would have been called a  _ good  _ child, too. 

He remembers her fondly, even if that fondness feels like a nail in his coffin. The duck of his dreams, the woman who had swept into his life with such panache that Scrooge had been sure she was royalty. Even now, after seeing her again fairly recently —anything within the last several  _ years  _ counts as recent when you’re as old as Scrooge is— his heart aches at the thought of her. 

Goldie O’Gilt. Losing her? Losing her was the worst experience of Scrooge’s life. And every time he’s lost her since, he’s been sure that it’s the end of the world, and that he’ll never feel happiness or  _ love  _ again. 

“Yes,” Scrooge finally answers. Webby looks up at him, startled, and Scrooge smiles sadly down at her. “I know exactly what you’re talkin’ ab’t, lass, and…” He exhales through his mouth, not a sigh, but a… pause, before he admits anything he will regret admitting. After all, Webby may be bright, but she  _ is  _ still a mere child. “That doesn’t go away.” He sees the light in her eyes dull a little, and he shakes his head. “But you listen here to your Uncle Scrooge.” She blinks, and he catches a tear as it falls, reaching forward to wipe it from her face. “No matter how  _ much _ you feel, and how hard it is, there is  _ always _ another way around it. I know you miss L—“ Scrooge catches himself hastily. “This thing. This  _ thing  _ that ye’ve lost. And I hate t’say it, but that’s somethin’ that’ll stay wit’ ye for a long time.  _ But _ . Ye have yer family, lass. Ye have yer Grandmother and the triplets and Donald and Launchpad. And ye’ve got me. We can’t take the hurt away, but we  _ can  _ help ye through it.” He smiles softly, encouragingly, and Webby sniffles hard. 

Before Scrooge can even think to brace himself, Webby is in his arms. She launches herself at him with a sob and he barely manages to catch her. But he does, and he holds her as she cries against him, her tiny body trembling with her effort. 

Eventually, Webby’s breathing turns from sobs to deep, even breaths, and Scrooge says her name gently, only to discover that she’s fallen asleep in his arms. He smiles tenderly down at her. 

It’s easy to carry Webby to bed. She weighs next-to-nothing, and the rest of the mansion is as silent as the snow falling outside. He sets her down and tucks her in, and if he kisses her on the forehead, there’s nobody who sees to prove it. 

...Except for Webby herself, who sits up sleepily as Scrooge tiptoes out of the room. 

“Uncle Scrooge?” she says, and Scrooge stops in the doorway and turns to face her, ignoring the silly, pleased little jolt that goes through him when she calls him _Uncle_ instead of  _Mister McDuck_. 

“Yes, lass?”

“Thank you,” she whispers, and Scrooge smiles warmly at her. 

“Merry Christmas,” he replies softly, and watches her wiggle down beneath her blankets for a moment before shutting her door and heading for bed himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!!! 
> 
> As always, kudos/comments are love! Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
